Liquid Network Enters Final Stages Of Recovery After 4000 Bitcoin Theft

The Liquid Network announced it is in the final stages of recovery after hackers stole 4000 bitcoin, valued at approximately 320 million dollars, from its federation wallet over a month ago. Most of the stolen funds were returned in a 'white hat' operation. The network stated it is enhancing security and reestablishing its full 1:1 bitcoin backing. Controlled reactivation of Federation peg-outs for authorized PAK key holders will follow. Blockstream CEO Adam Back confirmed that LBTC:BTC swaps are fully operational again. The hackers exploited an inflation bug on the Liquid sidechain to create over 4000 LBTC tokens, which were cashed out for real on-chain bitcoin. They claimed to be white hat hackers but retained 15% of the stolen funds, worth nearly 50 million dollars. The hackers threatened to reveal Blockstream's encrypted messages unless they received 10% of the bitcoins as a bounty. It remains unclear if Blockstream reached a private settlement with the hackers.